


Blinded by Foul Play

by ChaneenW



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Jealousy, MSR, Post-Episode s06e21: Field Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7624576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaneenW/pseuds/ChaneenW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding Samantha has given Mulder the happily ever after he’d been searching for most of his life, but Scully can’t help but wonder where she fits into it now.</p><p>I originally wrote this in the summer of 1999 but never posted it anywhere. I recently found it on an old floppy disk and decided to rework it a bit. The story is meant to take the place of the Biogenesis myth arc, and it’s just an idea of how the Samantha storyline could have been resolved before I knew how it actually was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Caro for helping me turn this 17 year old story into something (hopefully) readable. :)

“This isn’t working.” Mulder’s voice seemed unusually loud, cutting through the silence we’d been immersed in for the past couple hours.

 

“What isn’t?” I asked without a pause in my work.

 

“This, everything.” He gestured around the work area. “It’s all bullshit.” 

 

It was evening, nearing the end of an interminable day in the office, and I was finishing up the notes on our latest case. Although I didn’t respond, he knew he had my attention.

 

“Every morning I wake up, put on a generic suit, go to work where I flash my badge around, and then sit at my desk in an underground room where I play _Plan Nine from Outer Space_ until some scared yuppie calls the Bureau. They transfer the call to me, the believer in all things freaky and slimy, and then we’re off on another field assignment: take me to your leader boys, I’m ready to fly!” he mumbled without cracking a smile.

 

“Mulder—“

 

“It’s as if I’m playing this role and it’s not even challenging to me anymore. This character that I’m playing, that I continue to play way past the punch line, the “Spooky Mulder” shit—is that all there is to me?”

 

He could be so melodramatic sometimes, as if nobody else was ever forced to occasionally sit in an office all day and do paperwork. It could have been worse, as he well knew; we could have still been assigned to the Domestic Terrorism division. But, he was right on one point: long ago our roles had been assigned to us, and we hardly ever deviated from them.

 

“Skinner just wanted you to do a profile as a favor to him. You know that’s not all you do. We just finished an assignment,” I pointed out, holding the pages I had just printed up for him to see.

 

“Yes, and what happened with that, exactly?” Mulder snatched at the papers. “Ah yes! Our latest adventure: into the underground where mushrooms attempted to eat us alive, coating us with their digestive juices! Or was it just bog sledge?” he asked in mock horror. “Let us read further and find out.” He flipped through the pages as I sighed with impatience. “’Predictions proved incorrect’” he read, and then skimming further down, “’Findings have proven inconclusive.’ Pretty impressive work, I must say.” 

 

“I thought it summed things up rather well,” I said neutrally.

 

He looked down at me and sighed. “What’s the point of even working on the X-Files if we never really do anything? We don’t solve anything; we don’t help anybody. And meanwhile, as we run around in circles…”

 

He didn’t finish his thought, but he didn’t have to. His missing sister was always at the forefront his mind. She was the whole point of his crusade; the reason why he was on the X-Files. “Our work hasn’t been worthless,” I said quietly.

 

“Hasn’t it?” he asked harshly. He flopped back down in his chair and sighed. “Something has to change or I’ll go crazy. I’m done with being careful.  It hasn’t gotten me anywhere.”

 

“Careful? That’s really the word you want to use? After all that we’ve been through, all the lies, the people who want you dead, the—“

 

“So what?” he said. “If I never find what I’m looking for, I’ve wasted my time.” He looked over at me. “I’ve wasted your time.” He stood up abruptly and moved to the door.

 

“Mulder, where are you going?” I asked wearily.

 

 _To find justice,_ I thought he’d say, and I’d roll my eyes. But he surprised me.

 

“Out,” he answered and left the office.

 

 

*****

           

 

Not long after I’d fallen asleep, the phone woke me up. I looked at the clock. 11:21 PM.  “Yeah, Mulder?” I asked sleepily. 

 

There was a pause and then, “Scully, you know there are things I’ve done that I’m not proud of but I did them anyway in order to find the truth.”  He was whispering and I could barely hear him.

 

“Mulder, where are you? What are you talking about?” I was genuinely confused, but not really surprised. I was used to his late-night cryptic conversations by now.

 

“One day you find that you’ve run out of time and the one thing you’ve fought for is all there is. I’ve been patient for too long but I can’t take it anymore.”

 

I wasn’t sure but I thought he might be crying. “Mulder, you need to tell me what’s going on,” I said, forcing back the urge to panic.

 

“Scully, no matter what happens…” he stopped, distracted. “I have to go.”

 

“What are you trying to tell me? What do you need me to understand?” But I was holding a dead phone in my hand. I dialed his number and waited until his answering machine clicked on before I hung up.

*********

I didn’t hear from him for the rest of the week. He wasn’t at home, and he certainly didn’t show up to work. I was more anxious and worried by the minute, and Skinner was understandably pissed, his patience having run out. I was supposed to report to him as soon as I arrived at work, and I had no idea what I was going to say.

 

And that’s when Mulder finally called, just as I was walking into the office, just as I was growing desperate. “I need you to cover for me,” he said without prelude. His voice was breathy like he had just run a long distance.

 

“Just what is it you think I’ve been doing for you the past few days?” I replied through gritted teeth. On the one hand, I was ecstatic that he wasn’t dead in a gutter somewhere but at the same time I had a very strong desire to wring his neck.

 

“I know, and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get in touch before. I might be on to something, but it’s going to take a bit more time.”

 

“I need to know what’s going on if I’m going to continue to cover for you,” I said firmly.

 

“I don’t have that much time and this isn’t a secure phone. Meet me where we last had lunch in three hours.”

 

I hung up the phone. There was something in his voice that didn’t even sound like my partner at the other end of the phone. But there wasn’t any time to think about it, as I was due to face Skinner and complete next phase of covering Mulder’s ass.

 

“Agent Scully, I’m sure you know why I’ve called you here. Agent Mulder has not been at work in almost a week. It’s imperative that you inform me of his whereabouts.” Skinner’s words were formal, but his eyes showed that he was as worried as I was.

 

“Sir, he just contacted me. He had a family emergency and he asked me to request some personal time off for him.” I fixed my face in a perfect mask of concern, but Skinner had heard it all before.

 

“Care to be a bit more specific?” he asked gruffly but then his face softened. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

 

“I’ll get in touch as soon as I have more information,” I promised, knowing I sounded just like Mulder.

 

“Scully…” Skinner’s voice was laced with a warning.

 

“I’ll do what I can,” I mumbled and escaped as quickly as I could.

 

 

*****

 

 

The figure looked lonely, scuffing his shoes softly across gravel as he stood in front of the dive restaurant. He was absent-mindedly cracking sunflower seeds with his teeth, and I thought he didn’t see me approach.

 

I came up behind him and tapped him lightly. “Mulder,” I whispered. He shook his head slightly and started walking, so I had no choice but to follow.

 

He finally stopped and turned around, offering me a small smile, maybe apologetic, maybe just as a greeting. “I need you to do something for me,” he said. 

 

“What, saving you from Skinner’s wrath isn’t enough?”

 

“Thanks for that, Scully, but I actually did uncover something.”

 

I looked up at him quickly. “An X-File?”

 

He nodded. “Something we have to keep under wraps right now, though. There’s a lab in southern Florida that’s testing what seems to be human hybrids. If we can get down there and find out what’s going on, we have a good chance of figuring out how we can stop it.”

 

“It can’t be the Syndicate.”

 

“No, I think they’re an independent group but just as dangerous. If they succeed, it could mean annihilation for the entire human race.”

 

I pursed my lips together. “Is this similar to what happened to the women at the testing sites who didn’t take successfully to the hybridization?”

 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I think.” He looked relieved. “Scully, I need you to go check it out for me. There have been bodies down there that had been almost successfully transformed but at the last moment, something went wrong. I need you to fly down there and autopsy those bodies.”

 

“But Mulder,” I argued, “Skinner’s not going to agree to this. Why don’t we just have their field office find the lab and fly the bodies up here so I can take a look at them?”

 

“No, Skinner isn’t going to allow it,” he agreed. “But I need you to do it anyway. I would feel better if you can find out firsthand what’s actually going on.”

 

“Why I am going alone?  Where are you going to be?” I asked. 

 

He gave me a small grin. “Somebody has to elude Skinner while you’re gone. You know, to tell him you got sick or something.”

 

“That’s not—“

 

“I have a few things here that need to be taken care of,” he said quietly.

 

I was about to argue further but decided to just give up. There was no point in trying to force things out of him when he had his mind made up. “All right, fine,” I conceded wearily. “I’ll go to Florida and see what I can find.”

 

“Okay then,” he said briskly, all business again. “I’ll get the information to the office as soon as possible about where you will need to be and what you’re looking for.” He walked with me until we were almost on the main road again before we parted ways. As I turned away, he suddenly called back to me. “And Scully?”

I looked back at him.  “Yes?”

 

“Be careful.”

 

 

***** 

 

 

I took a flight down to Ft. Myers, Florida that very evening as per Mulder’s instructions. I ended up spending way too long driving around Naples, trying to follow his ambiguous instructions on where to find the labs, but everything led to a dead end. Nothing Mulder had told me existed on any maps, and even worse, none of the contacts he’d given me seemed to exist either.

 

At first, I thought there had been a major cover-up. I’d begun to hypothesize that perhaps this was actually the cunning work of the Syndicate, and that somehow they had managed to regroup and had carefully hidden any evidence of their testing sites. I had been congratulating Mulder on being able to even discover the tiniest hints of this activity.

 

But after a while, I began to have doubts, especially since I could no longer reach Mulder. Desperate and out of ideas, I finally decided to call Skinner, even though Mulder had specifically warned against it.

 

“Assistant Director Skinner speaking.”

 

“Hello sir, this is Agent Scully,” I said, cringing.

 

“Agent Scully? Agent _Dana_ Scully?” he asked sarcastically. “And just where have you been? This isn’t the private sector, you know. You’re expected to check in every once in a while.”

 

“I know, sir, but I had the flu all week. I couldn’t move and—“

 

“The flu, huh? Interesting. With both of you gone I expected to hear that you two were AWOL in Roswell or something, collecting ‘alien’ specimens,” he said scathingly. “But if you were laid up in bed, am I to take it that he’s still preoccupied with his ‘family emergency’?”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Agent Scully?”

 

I was perplexed; this hadn’t been the plan. “Didn’t Mulder tell you that I was ill?”

 

“I haven’t seen or heard from him since I last saw you. Now listen, I want you here, _both_ of you, and I want that to happen _fast_. Do you know how much trouble I could get in for covering for you? It’s been over a week, Scully. Where the hell is he?”

_I’d kind of like to know the same thing myself._ “Don’t worry, sir, we’ll both be there as soon as we can.”

 

It was starting to become clear. He hadn’t just been hanging out at the office tying up loose ends. He had sent me away—not to investigate, but to just be away, out of the way. The weird phone call in the middle of the night came to mind, and I felt something strange in the pit of my stomach. I knew that Mulder had been out looking for trouble. I lifted the phone again to call the airline.

 

 

*****

 

 

After finding nothing amiss at our office, there was only one place left to check before I was officially out of ideas as to Mulder’s whereabouts. I knocked on the door to his apartment and when no one answered, I slipped the key in the lock to let myself in. The fish in his tank swarmed hungrily towards the food I gave them, which I didn’t take as a good sign.

 

_You have to think calmly now, Dana. Go through the apartment and get the facts. Something has to tell you where he’s been._

 

I began methodically searching the place, not even sure exactly what I was looking for. I didn’t know if clues would even be there. I ripped open cupboards and drawers, wasting time. _Why didn’t you tell me? We’re supposed to trust each other, dammit!_ Nothing, and more nothing. I slammed my hand down on the coffee table in frustration and sank down on the floor. In vain, I tried his cell phone again, but it was out of service. Of course.

 

I rubbed my temples. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that he was in trouble. I sat there, limp with exhaustion for several moments before willing myself to move. Upon standing up, my hand grazed a folder I hadn’t noticed. Looking down, I saw that it was almost hidden under the couch. It was an X-Files folder, familiar and nondescript. Opening it, I saw that it was the one I had been working on when Mulder disappeared. But why was Mulder still holding on to it?

 

Everything seemed to be in order, but when I got to the very end, there was an extra page that had been shoved haphazardly inside. On the crumpled piece of lined paper a few names were written, and I recognized them instantly: Betsy Hagopian, Penny Northern, Lottie Holloway. They read like a MUFON reunion, these names of people who had supposedly suffered my plight but ultimately were less fortunate than I was. My name was on the list; so was Samantha Mulder’s. Her name was circled several times, almost frantically. I didn’t understand at first. What did all this have to do with mushrooms?

 

But then I realized that the case and the folder were incidental to the piece of paper, just somewhere to put it while Mulder followed his instincts. These women belonged to Skyland Mountain, and on some level I had to admit that so did I. But Samantha? It must have been what he had been trying to figure out. I grabbed the folder and hurried out of the apartment.

 

 

*****

 

 

Clutching the steering wheel, I navigated my car through the mountains of Virginia on the same road I had taken so long ago when I was still fairly new to extraterrestrial phenomena. Again I traveled the Blue Ridge Parkway, but this time I was in the driver’s seat. It made me smile sadly to think of how young I had been back in those first days, how I had thought that everything had a rational explanation, if I could only get that through Mulder’s head. But those naïve days had ended once I’d been abducted. Nothing had been the same since.

 

I pushed a wayward strand of red hair behind my ear and glanced down at the creased map on the seat beside me. I had no way of knowing where Mulder might be, if he was even here at all.  Still, I had to keep going on my hunch; it was all I had. I sighed and turned my attention back to the road, squinting a bit to see clearly. The air was foggy and heavy as if ready to burst with precipitation, and I turned carefully into the entrance of Skyland Mountain resort and crept up the winding road.

 

Now where to go? I thought about asking the welcome lodge if they’d seen any suspicious activity. But then, through a break in the mist a crumbling building, reminiscent of a warehouse, beckoned me. Although it seemed a bit familiar, I felt sure I’d never been there before. I knew, though, that it was impossible to trust my memories when it came to anything in this area.

 

Making a quick decision, I was soon dashing down the halls of the dingy warehouse, gun in hand, blindly taking turns until a voice I recognized as Mulder’s wafted from behind dirty crates and boxes in an adjacent room. I moved closer to hear the conversation but made sure I was still hidden.

 

“It’s over now, don’t you get it?”

 

“They didn’t give me a choice. I loved her, I would have died…” A raspy voice trailed off.  It sounded as if the man it belonged to had been run over or shot, or both. 

 

“Don’t change the subject. You know where she is. You know because you put her there, you bastard!” Mulder’s voice broke my heart. It was both the sound of a madman and a scared child. I ventured a peek. The cigarette smoking man lay on a grimy mattress. He was almost unrecognizable and coughed up blood. Mulder had a gun pointed at the fallen man and was yelling in frustration.

 

“I know you have her! Diana _told_ me you tried to hide Samantha from the aliens, waiting for your precious vaccine to be ready. But the aliens found out and torched everyone. Everyone but you. You managed to save yourself, Diana, and my sister. _I know it all!_ ” They threatened you to drop the project and you agreed to let them experiment on Samantha to save your own ass!”

 

I slid further into the room quietly, but Mulder heard me and whipped around, gun drawn. When he saw it was me, his whole body sagged as he lowered his weapon. “Scully,” he said simply with a look of helplessness on his face.

 

“Oh my God, Mulder,” I murmured as I moved to his side. His left cheek was caked with dried blood, and the gash that stretched diagonally across his forehead needed stitches. I reached up to his head but he shied away. His face was ashen and for a moment, he looked worse than the man lying on the dirty mat.

 

“He’s losing consciousness,” I said. I slid my hands over the cigarette smoking man’s stomach, pressing gently as Mulder watched. “There’s internal bleeding.” I picked up my first-aid kit I had brought along with me in anticipation of finding Mulder in this condition. Without a word between us, I knew what he wanted, and so I started to work on the old man.

 

After several tense minutes, I stood up and looked up at Mulder. “He’s out now, but he’ll live.”  Mulder nodded. “I guess you did this to him?” I prodded. 

 

In a hollow voice, Mulder answered, “I had to. There wasn’t any other way. I needed to know, I needed…” He broke off and started to cry. Tears slid down his face making canals in his dirty cheeks. I moved to him and wrapped my arms around him as he leaned his weight on me, burying his face in my hair. “I’m sorry you had to put up with so much of this,” he murmured.  “But it’s almost over now.” 

 

“It was okay,” I assured him. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I was so worried about you, and about everything that could have happened.”

 

“So many years have passed,” he said, looking over my head, seeing something I couldn’t. I knew he wasn’t talking about us anymore. “It’s almost over. It _has_ to be almost over.” With a foreboding feeling, I knew he would be right, one way or another.

 

 

*****

 

 

It was much later when the smoking man woke up. We had been in that warehouse for several hours and Mulder had slept during most of that time also, huddled in his coat. I couldn’t help but wonder where he’d been since I’d last seen him.

 

“Water,” croaked the cigarette smoking man, looking around for Mulder. He was more lucid than he’d been when I first arrived.

 

Mulder walked from the hallway where we’d been sitting towards him but ignored the request, instead taking his weapon out and pointing again it at the man who had caused him nothing but pain for years. “Are you ready to tell me now?” he asked with a deep growl.

 

The smoking man laughed, a horrible sound like steel crushing in on itself. “How many times are you going to wave a gun in my face before you find the courage to pull the trigger?”

 

Mulder grabbed the smoking man’s lapel, hard. “Where is she?” he hissed.

 

The cigarette smoking bastard smirked contemptuously and replied, “Your sister is better off not knowing what a pathetic coward you’ve become.”

 

“Shut up,” said Mulder, briefly closing his eyes and letting go of the old man. The hand holding the gun started to shake a bit, but if it was from fatigue or distress, I couldn’t tell. I sucked in my breath quietly, revulsion bubbling up in me at the scornful words he directed at my partner.

 

Like a dog that could smell fear, the cigarette smoking man seemed to grow stronger and more confident with each moment that passed without a bullet in his chest. “You could forget about all of this if you turn around and return to your basement office like nothing ever happened,” he said, “or you can agree to join me and see your sister today.”

 

To my surprise, Mulder started to waver. _Don’t listen to him, Mulder!_ I balled my hands into fists and willed him to understand my silent message.

 

Cigarette smoking man noticed the indecision too. “My son,” he said gently, and reached his hand up, as if to caress Mulder’s face, even though Mulder wasn’t close enough.

 

The look of anguish on Mulder’s face triggered my protective reflexes. I refused to let this wretched excuse for a human being toy with his emotions any longer. Walking into the room, I pulled out my gun and fixed it on the smoking man as well. “I don’t threaten people lightly,” I said softly, standing alongside Mulder. “If I have a weapon pointed at you, it’s for one reason only.” 

 

The cigarette smoking man was surprised to see me, and for the first time there was trepidation in his eyes. I couldn’t help but feel smug about that; he had to be realizing how much he’d underestimated me, always assuming I was more Mulder’s sidekick than his partner. Cancer man looked from me to Mulder and then back to me again.

 

My eyes never left the smoking man but I could feel Mulder watching me and saw his bewilderment. I found a perverse joy in shocking him, in shocking both of them. I was the wild card and a loose cannon and this son of a bitch was _not_ going to mess with Mulder again. Narrowing my eyes at the old man, I quietly said, “Last chance.”

 

It wasn’t quite clear to me why someone so pathetic still wanted to live, but the survival instinct was admittedly a strong one. “Wait,” he begged, addressing Mulder. With a quick glance at me, he then lowered his eyes and muttered an address, somewhere I had never heard of before.     

 

This seemed to satisfy Mulder and I lowered my gun and turned away, waiting for the inevitable since it was the only possible ending to this sordid nightmare he had been living. But nothing happened for several seconds and I looked up.

Mulder had turned away and was reaching for my elbow. “Let’s just go,” he murmured. What the hell was happening? Mulder should have known better than to let him live. And he _would_ live too, despite the fact that Mulder had practically beaten him to a bloody pulp. He would live to threaten the world’s security, to plan conspiracies, and continue to make Mulder’s life a living hell. I thought about lifting my weapon and just doing it, but something in Mulder’s eyes stopped me. Wordlessly, I followed him out the door, leaving the pathetic man where he lay.

 

 

*****

 

 

“You should have let me shoot him.” 

 

We were on the road, headed to the mysterious address we’d been given, and Mulder was so jumpy I thought I would have to sedate him. I didn’t know when he had last eaten, and he hadn’t let me properly tend to the wounds on his face. He had been in no condition to drive, so I had taken the wheel and we’d been winding down a convoluted path of forgotten back roads for an hour before we started talking. 

 

He glanced sideways at me. “That’s not who you are.”

 

“That man has taken so much from you,” I argued. “He’s taken so much from both of us.”

 

“He gave us what we needed,” he said. “If it leads us to Samantha...”

 

He trailed off and gazed out the window. I let a whole minute pass before I said, “You mentioned Diana, earlier.” He kept his face turned away without answering. “You know, I have a right to know what’s been going on while you’ve been gone.” Nothing, so I tried again. “I heard you tell the smoking man that Diana gave you information that led you to him. What else did she say?”

 

He sighed. “It doesn’t really matter anymore now.”

 

“Mulder, I can only imagine what you’ve been through, but you have no idea what I’ve gone through in trying to find you as well. I’d really like to know what’s going on.”

 

“We should probably call an ambulance for him,” said Mulder, changing the subject.

 

“Go ahead.”

 

After the call and several more tense moments, Mulder consulted the map. “Turn here, I think,” he said and pointed out an almost hidden road.

 

I sighed and yanked the car left. He was clearly not going to tell me anything right now. For the rest of the short trip, our only conversation focused on which road to take or when to turn around when we hit a dead end. Eventually, we pulled into a half-hidden dirt driveway.

 

“Here it is,” he announced. “Hopefully.”

 

I peered closer at the house in question and said, “It looks abandoned.”

 

“I think that’s the point.” He hopped out of the car and sprinted towards the door.

 

He wasn’t taking any precautions. There could have been a million traps set and Fox Mulder would have run right through them all to get to his sister. I followed more slowly, picking my way through the weeds that had grown freely for years. The porch creaked loudly as we stood on it, hesitating. It seemed absurd to knock at such a rundown place. Mulder made the decision for us and opened the door slowly. The inside hall was brightly decorated in blue wallpaper, and cartoonish ducks on those walls were flying away from the boarded up doors and windows.

 

We both drew our guns; I didn’t know why; habit, maybe. There were no noises at all. Nothing moved except for the light that shimmered in from the few cracks in the windows. Mulder turned toward the staircase and I followed. I was worried that the dilapidated stairs would not hold our weight but before I could say anything, Mulder ran up ahead. I kept my gun pointed at the shadows. When I reached the top of the stairs, I heard distinct and raspy breathing. For a moment we stood there and listened to the sounds of life coming from the room a few feet away from us.

 

Mulder walked forward and I began to feel a bit disoriented. Somehow I still couldn’t believe this was happening. He pushed open the door and we stood in the doorway, staring at the person who stared back at us. The composed and intelligent-looking woman who stood before us caught me by surprise. She looked just like her clones that we had seen years before.

 

Suddenly, her expression changed to fear, and Mulder motioned back to me. “Scully, put away you gun,” he whispered as he sheathed his own. Numbly, I put my weapon back in its holster and exhaled the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. Mulder took a step forward and held out his hand. “Samantha,” he said simply. It wasn’t a question of identification but more an answered prayer. I was feeling a bit awkward as an intruder on their reunion, but I couldn’t make myself move. I looked around the room instead. Cobwebs hung in the rafters and the place didn’t appear to have heat or plumbing. She lived _here_? 

 

The raspy breathing increased; her eyes darted around. “Samantha,” he said again. He took a cautious step closer as I remained by the door. “My name is Fox Mulder. I’m your brother, do you remember me?” 

 

But she turned away from him and looked once more at me, as if she knew _me_ and not him. Her eyes narrowed and then brightened as she held out her hand to me. Moving toward her, I grasped it automatically. “A confederation of women,” she said distinctly. Her warm brown eyes showed that she recognized me from a place far away or long ago. We locked eyes for several moments as I searched to remember what I had been glad to forget. 

 

“It’s me, Samantha,” Mulder tried again. “Your brother, Fox.” 

 

She turned abruptly away from me as if I had only imagined our brief connection and smiled at him. “Fox,” she said with warmth. “I knew we’d see each other again.” They embraced as I backed away toward the door, wanting to give them a moment.

 

A few moments later, we stepped into the blinding morning sun and were greeted by activity on the lawn: several police cars were parked nearby and officers lingered nearby, looking at the house and taking notes. Diana Fowley was also there, talking with a tall, lanky cop. Mulder walked up to her. “What’s going on here?” He put a hand protectively around his sister and held her back. 

 

“Fox, I’m sorry,” Diana said, trying to appear innocent. She oozed with helpfulness and I bristled as I always did in her presence. “I told the local police to stay away and that it wasn’t necessary for them to survey the situation. But they insisted.”

 

“How did they even know to come here?” I challenged her. 

 

She looked directly at me, undaunted. “Somebody called 911 in this area to report an injured man elsewhere, but it is protocol to investigate the place where the call came from as well. Unfortunately, they were unable to locate the man in question.” 

 

“That’s so surprising,” I murmured sardonically.

 

Diana smirked as she appraised me. “Yes, and because of that we won’t be able to press charges against whomever attacked him, which is terribly unfortunate.” She paused for a moment to gaze at me significantly. “But at least something good came out of the situation,” she said, indicating Samantha.

 

Mulder was holding onto Samantha’s hand tightly. “I just wish they would leave us alone,” he murmured watching reporters start to make their way up the driveway to the house.

 

“Oh, Fox,” said Diana indulgently. “You know they aren’t going to do that.” She ran her hand lightly over his arm, the one that wasn’t linked to his sister. “This has made you a hero.”

 

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “We both know exactly what he went through to find her,” I snapped. “But why would the press even care? It’s not like he discovered a cure for AIDS.”

 

Out of the corner of my eye, Mulder winced as if I’d slapped him. I instantly regretted my words; that woman always made me irrationally angry.

 

“This is big news!” Diana’s voice was injured. “Can’t you imagine the headlines? ‘Man obsessed with aliens finds sister after 26 years.’ She turned her full attention back to Mulder and said soothingly, “I can help you keep them away from your sister, but they are going to want you to share your story.”

 

“I want to get Samantha home, back to my home,” said Mulder faintly. I saw that it was too overwhelming for him, so I decided to take charge.

 

“I’m taking Mulder and his sister home right now,” I informed Diana. “They’re in no condition to be interrogated by anyone right now.”

 

Diana ignored me completely. “But Fox, the reporters are going to want you to do a speech!”

 

Mulder looked bewildered. “What should I say? I don’t know what to say.”

 

“Just talk about what you know,” Diana said soothingly. “Tell them everything you’ve been through. They love human-interest stories.” Mulder looked to her hopefully and she rewarded him with a reassuring smile. I let out a sigh in frustration. Diana was clearly an expert at pretending to be concerned, and he was falling for it left and right. It was astonishing how men—especially Mulder—could be so dense at times.

 

I caught Diana’s gaze and held it. “Mulder already said he wants to go home and I will honor that request. If he wants to stay, then I will leave and take Samantha with me.”

 

“Actually, you can’t take Samantha with you,” said Diana coolly. “You may leave, of course, if you wish, but Samantha needs to stay here. The authorities want to look things over and ask some questions.”

 

“Fine, then. But I’m leaving,” I said. “Come on, Mulder. Let them figure out what’s going on here.” I started walking towards the car, but when I realized he wasn’t following, I turned back. “Mulder?”  

 

“Well, I really don’t want to leave Samantha here by herself. I’m going to stick around and make sure she’s okay.” He smiled uncertainly. “And I should probably make some sort of statement.”

 

“So stay here. I’ve had about enough,” I said and stalked off.


	2. Disintegration

 That evening, after I had cooled off a bit, I turned on the TV to the six-o-clock news. Sure enough, Mulder was the top story of the day. Apparently, word about his sister had traveled quickly. The cameras zoomed in on what looked like thousands of groups all up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. Some were protesting, some were praying, and some were just acting crazy. It was a circus down on the Mall.

 

The cameras focused in on Mulder. He looked freshly scrubbed, and a stylist had already taken control of his hair. It looked as if a weed-whacker had been set loose on his head. Someone had let him take a shower and he had shaved since the morning. His wounds on his cheek and forehead had been covered with makeup; obviously they had been hounding him all day. I wondered where they had taken his sister, as Samantha wasn’t in any of the shots. 

 

Mulder stood at a podium ready to give his speech on live TV. He looked out at the sea of faces and smiled. “I’m pleased that so many of you have taken such an obvious interest in the well-being of the planet and of humanity as we know it.” Yeah right, they just wanted to hear the gossip about the abduction. “Over the years, I have told many people about the night of November 23, 1973 when my sister was taken from our house right in front of my eyes.  I knew she had been taken from the house by aliens.”  He paused as the crowd started buzzing wildly. 

 

“I knew I would see her again. I knew that if I kept looking hard enough, I’d find her. I never gave up hope.  I devoted my life to finding my sister.”  There were murmurs of sympathy and approval. “It’s been a long search but it was well worth it. My sister and I are reunited and will start to get reacquainted very soon.” Everyone started cheering, and I had to admit that his speech was very touching. 

 

Then, however, he started getting to the part he should have left out. “During the years that she was gone, I tracked a group of men who were collaborating with an alien race. They made a deal with these extraterrestrials that they would agree to perform tests on innocent humans. But now, the group has disbanded and the aliens have left. Perhaps someday aliens will return to this planet and I hope that they do. Maybe at that future date we can have friendly relations with them and men won’t be tempted to form their own hidden agendas with them. I believe it is possible to have relationships with other life forms, but this will only be possible once we’ve learned to be responsible.”

 

After that, everyone started asking him questions. They fell over each other trying to get his opinion.  It was funny in a sad way because that’s not who he was. The figure on my TV screen was not Fox Mulder; it was not the man I knew. If not for him munching on sunflower seeds between interviews, I would have believed he was an impostor. I sighed and flipped the TV off.

 

 

*****

 

 

The next evening, Mulder showed up at my apartment unannounced. “They finally let me loose,” he half-joked as he sat down on the couch. “Did you see me on the news?”

 

“I’m not really a big fan of the news,” I answered and then paused. “But I saw your speech,” I conceded, sitting down beside him. 

 

“I figured you had. Everyone saw it; my mother called up to talk to me.” He shook his head with a smirk. “She called it deplorable. Samantha’s over at her house right now. They’re making plans for her to move in there as soon as my mom finishes cleaning out the extra bedroom.” He grinned and continued, “It’s so strange to be able to say something that _normal_ about her, you know? Before, there was always an element of drama, of suspense surrounding her name. Now, she’s just my sister.”

 

I flashed him a brief smile. “Has everything pretty much died down? It looked like a mad house downtown. It will be nice for you to settle down and get to know your sister again.”

 

“Well, I don’t know how much it has died down yet. But the crowds have been a bit hard on Samantha. Thank goodness for Diana, though. She really did help keep the reporters away from my sister.”

 

That reminded me. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Mulder. I know I acted terribly, but you know that woman has a way of getting under my skin and I just lose my cool. But she plays all of us for fools,” I couldn’t help pointing out.

 

“Scully, that’s really unfair. She’s always been helpful. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have found my sister.”

 

“Yes, I do recall you telling the smoking man that Diana told you everything about the Syndicate,” I said dryly. “Care to fill me in?”

 

“It’s basically what I said in my speech. The aliens were working with the cigarette smoking man’s group but once he lost control of the project, the aliens pulled out. In fact, Diana said she was very sure that it was all over. She knows because she had contact with them too. They’re gone for good.”

 

“But how did you know even know where to start looking?” I pressed him. “How did you know where to find the smoking man, and how did you know he could tell you where your sister was?”

 

“Well, we’ve always known that he had something to do with it. We knew that he worked with my father and that he’s always been involved with the alien conspiracy. He was involved with the Syndicate’s plan for hybridization as well as with the vaccine. I knew he was my closest link to the past, to solving my past.”

 

He was skirting around the main point, and I wasn’t going to let him off that easily. “You said, though, that Diana told you where to find him. How did you know she knew anything?”

 

“Remember, Scully, that you were the one who first accused her of collaborating with the Syndicate. I was just following up on your hunch. Especially when she was the only one out of the group besides the smoking man who survived the torching, I figured there was a reason for that and thought she could give me some answers.”

 

I caught his defensive mood right away and narrowed my eyes. “She just offered you all this information?” I asked skeptically.

 

“Well, yes. We used to work together. We used to be close. She wanted to help me.”

 

“Really. She just decided to betray him to be helpful?”

 

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. I’d always suspected that Diana got in over her head with him and wanted a way out. She set up a secret meeting for him at that building in Virginia. He assumed he was meeting a contact about restarting the hybridization program with new members. He had no reason not to trust her.”

 

“Mulder, I’m not stupid. I’ve always known that she’s wanted something from you and she wasn’t about to give up free information until she got it.”

 

He hunched forward, not looking at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“You _do_ know what I’m talking about!” I said angrily.

 

“What do you want me to say?”

 

It all came back to me now. I remembered his whispered conversation to me, and the answering machine that had picked up at his apartment right after he had called. “Why don’t you just tell me?” I fumed.

 

“What?”

 

“Did you sleep with Diana?” I asked crisply.

 

There was a pause and then, “You know how much I needed that information…”

 

“Shit, Mulder,” I said wearily and sat down. I covered my eyes and when I opened them again, it wasn’t even Mulder looking at me. It was another man, one I didn’t know.

 

“Scully--“

 

“I’m really tired, and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave so I can get some sleep,” I said stiffly, hoping my face didn’t betray as many emotions as I was feeling.

 

As soon as he left, I leaned back into the couch and sighed. I knew I didn’t own him and never had, but I felt the betrayal as if I had. I couldn’t believe what was happening. First, he shipped me off to Florida so he could go and risk everything to save his sister, knowing that if I was here, I’d ruin everything by being practical. Then, I had to find out that he had literally slept with the enemy in exchange for information. And then finally, and worst of all, he’d acted none of this was a big deal at all. He had used me just like he used her.

 

 

*****

 

 

Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any worse, Skinner called us into his office at Mulder’s request to have an official dialogue. I assumed it had to do with Samantha, and I ended up being partially correct.

 

“At Agent Mulder’s solicitation, I have reviewed the possibility of the both of you discontinuing work on the X-Files,” Skinner began. “I realize that the two of you have done good, honest work the past six years; however, Agent Mulder has brought up an excellent point. The return of his sister has raised new awareness on certain issues, and it appears that the resulting media hype has led investigating the paranormal to new and dangerous heights. Therefore, I will honor Agent Mulder’s request that work on the X-Files be put on hold. When it resumes at an undetermined date, I will assign two different agents.” He paused briefly and then said, “Agent Mulder has also informed me that he would like to permanently resign from his position at the FBI.”

 

Suddenly the air was devoid of oxygen. I swiveled in my chair toward Mulder to see if it was actually true.

 

“Think of it as an early retirement,” said Mulder with a self-satisfied smile.

 

“But…what will you do?” I spluttered. “You can’t quit working at thirty-seven!”

 

“I won’t really have time for work now that I’ve got all these press conferences to attend. And I’d like to get to know Samantha better.”

 

Skinner looked uncomfortable listening to our exchange. Clearly, he thought Mulder had told me already. “Agent Scully, I will be reassigning you to another division as soon as I can get the paperwork finished. Until then, you can have a vacation with pay,” he said, and then looked at me. “Unless, of course, you want to quit too. I understand that you had a lot to do with this yourself.”

 

“No,” I assured him impassively, “reassignment is fine.”

 

“All right then, agents, you are excused.”

 

Mulder immediately sprang from his seat and left the room, obviously trying to avoid me. Following him to the main doors, I tried to catch up with him to ask about his decision to quit. Once we got outside, though, I lost him in the throng of reporters who immediately swarmed him. My voice was lost among the multitude:

 

“Is it true, Fox, that your sister was abducted by aliens?”

 

“Can you confirm that there is life on Mars after all?”

 

“Mr. Mulder, I would like your opinion on the possibility of contacting extraterrestrial life forms through electromagnetic wave signals.”

 

“Will you teach us how to contact E.T?”

 

Some of their questions were just plain ridiculous. All Mulder knew was the love he had for his sister. It was that and his intuition that had kept him going through the years. At one point he looked back and caught my eye. He shrugged apologetically before the crowd swallowed him up again. A few people tried to ask me questions but I pretended I didn’t know anything about it. It wasn’t that far off from how I was feeling.

 

 

*****

 

 

I got into my car and just sat in the parking garage for a few minutes, not knowing where to go or what to do. All I wanted was my normal life back, even if that meant chasing Mulder as he chased the truth. I sat with my hands on the steering wheel but nowhere to go, Diana Fowley walked past without noticing me, and I glowered at her through the glass.

 

As she climbed into her car, I started my own without knowing why. I didn’t consciously decide to follow her, but somehow that’s what I ended up doing. All across town we swarmed in and out of the heavy afternoon traffic and ultimately ended up leaving the city. Diana Fowley lived in the suburbs? She turned into a neighborhood where all the houses looked as if they had just been built. Keeping my distance, I followed her as she turned down streets that looked exactly the same, except for their names. Tulip, Daisy, Rose – they all had flower names to be quaint, I’m sure. All the lawns were manicured and children played on the sidewalks. I felt like I was back at that ridiculous housing development Mulder and I had recently investigated.

 

Finally, Diana turned onto Lilac Court and began to slow down. I hadn’t intended to follow her as far as her house, mainly for fear of being caught, but now I was curious. I wanted to see where she lived, and how. I guess, also, I wanted to see where Mulder had been compelled to come _that_ night.

 

I made sure that I was a safe distance away and pulled over to watch her walk into her house. It was like all of the other houses, exactly nondescript in every way. There were no touches of personality to show that anybody lived there at all, much less such an insincere and hateful person. I stayed for a few minutes and just simply watched the house. And wondered. _Why, Mulder? You’ve got what you want. You found your sister. Why do you continue to defend her?_ I allowed myself the luxury of a few stray tears, knowing the answer to that last question. With a heavy heart, I turned around and returned home.

 

 

*****

 

 

That night I sat on my couch and stared blankly at the wall. My life had changed more in the last 48 hours than I thought would have been possible in a lifetime. But however much mine had changed, I had to concede that Mulder’s had changed more. Perhaps if we just sat down, the two of us, and discussed things, we could come to an understanding about why he wanted to give up his work. The thought made me feel better than I had in days. I picked up the phone and dialed Mulder’s number.

 

“Mulder.”

 

“Mulder, it’s me. I was just wondering how everything was going.”

 

“I’m glad you called. Listen, there’s something I want you to do for me. Skinner said we should clean out the office within a few days. I’m kind of busy with everything going on, so I was wondering if maybe you could do my part too. You can just throw everything away.”

 

“Everything? What about the files?”

 

“Well, no, of course not the files. You can turn those over to Skinner.”

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to think about this? You have a lot of stuff you accumulated over the years. Do you really want to just throw it all away?”

 

“I don’t need it anymore. I have what I was looking for. I have everything now.”

 

I began to get angry. “I will _not_ clean out your part of the office. And yes, it’s always been _your_ office…I didn’t even have a desk! So if you want to haul everything to the dump, be my guest.  But I’m not going to do your work for you anymore.”

 

“What’s going on? Did you call just to fight?”

 

“No, actually I called to see if you wanted to get together and talk about everything that’s been happening.” My eyes began to sting and that just made me angrier. I fought to keep my voice steady and said, “A lot’s been going on, Mulder. You didn’t even tell me you wanted to quit.  Don’t you think you should have told me first, as your friend?”

 

“Yes, and I’m sorry. I did mean to talk to you but it seemed like everything was moving so fast.  In fact, speaking of that, I’ve got to run now. I’m going to be interviewed by the _New York Times_. Isn’t that great?”

 

“Yes, Mulder, it’s fabulous. I’ll talk to you later.”

 

 

*****

 

 

When you’re used to doing something for so long, and then it’s over, you kind of feel like a small part of you died. At least, that’s the way I felt the next morning when I woke up and realized I had no place I needed to be. There was nobody that needed to see me, and if I stayed in bed all day, nobody would care.

 

I remembered how not too long ago, I had been fed up with the way things at the Bureau were run. It was just a sham, the government was, developed to make people sleep easier at night because they assumed there were good people out there protecting them. I never believed in those people and I never thought all of them were good. But right now, I realized I wanted to be one of those people out there protecting the rights of citizens.

 

But instead, I was unemployed. Okay, no, I was not actually unemployed.  But I might as well have been. Skinner didn’t want me working again until the whole mess died down. And what did I have to look forward to when I was eventually reassigned? They would probably stick me with some uninspiring desk job where I could spent hours performing data entry. How thrilling. At least on the X-Files, I thought I was accomplishing something. I always thought Mulder had thought so too.

 

Since I had nothing to do anyway, I decided to go into the office and start cleaning it out, even Mulder’s part. I refused to throw it all away though. We had come too far to do that. The next agents who took over could use our notes and follow our protocol if they wished. 

 

When I got there, the door was open and Mulder was already inside, sitting at his desk. He looked up and smiled as I entered. “Oh, hey, Scully,” he said easily. I could almost imagine that everything was normal and he was going to tell us we just _had_ to fly to North Dakota to investigate a case of killer grubs. For the first time in my life I wished those would be his words.  Instead he said, “You didn’t sound thrilled about cleaning out the whole office by yourself, so I came by to help.”

 

“Yeah, well, thanks,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. It was too strange to be here and not get straight to work. I never admitted it to myself, but I had always pictured myself working with Mulder indefinitely. I stood in front of him for a few awkward moments, not knowing what to do.

 

“How about you take the desk and I’ll start getting the files in order?” he suggested. He got up and moved over to the filing system, motioning me toward the chair. I sighed and stood up on the chair at his desk and started pulling pencils down off the ceiling. We worked silently for a while before he started laughing to himself.

 

“What is it?” I turned around to watch him holding a few folders.

 

“Oh, nothing really. I was just reading over the reports that you wrote and remembered some of the crazy trips we took. Remember that assignment in Texas where the town was full of vampires? And you had the hots for the sheriff?” he said, smirking.

 

“I don’t remember it quite that way,” I said automatically. “But you were pretty good with solving the case, anyway,” I added hastily. I didn’t really want to get into an argument right now about something so trivial.

 

“And remember the first trip we took, out to Oregon? You thought I was nuts the entire time. We’ve covered a lot of ground since then.”

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?  I think you really need to think about what you’re doing. I know everything is kind of crazy right now, but afterward don’t you want something to go back to? Like a normal life? You’re the one who told me you thought this _was_ a normal life,” I pointed out. 

 

He laughed. “I still think that investigating the paranormal is a normal occupation. It’s just not for me anymore. I’m satisfied with where I am. I really am, Scully.”

 

“What about money? What are you going to do when the money runs out?”

 

“Actually, I just cut a book deal.”

 

“You cut a book deal?  Mulder, you can’t--“

 

“If Tiger Woods and Barbra Streisand can write books, then so can I!”

 

“I didn’t mean you can’t write, I just meant you can’t go public with this, your feelings, your life! It’s one thing to do press conferences and interviews, but this is ridiculous. Don’t you know how much havoc you’re going to create when people realize what you’re saying? That there _are_ aliens, there was a government conspiracy, there was a contracted cover-up, and that you’re not spooky, you’re just _right_?” I realized that I was getting a little hysterical.

 

“What’s wrong with proving I’m right?  All my life people have laughed at my career. Now, they’ll be begging to listen to me.”

 

“People have listened to you,” I murmured.

 

“Oh, you know they haven’t,” he said curtly. “I’m a joke, remember? I don’t have anything intelligent to contribute; I just look up at the sky and wait for aliens. This is my chance to prove myself, not only in my professional world, but to everyone.”

 

I bit my lip and said nothing. That had never mattered to him before, I knew. Once upon a time, my approval was all that mattered to him. It was hard to believe that this was the same person who, just a couple months ago, had invited me to the park on a date to play baseball. We’d been so carefree and happy that evening, but now I barely recognized him. Where did we go from here?  

*****

 

 

After a couple sleepless and agitated nights, my car found its way to my mother’s house. When she opened her door, I was already falling apart.

 

“Hello, honey.” My mom greeted me warmly. Then she frowned as she had a better look at me. “What’s wrong? I heard about Fox and his sister on the radio. So he finally found her after all these years.”

 

“Actually, that’s kind of what I’m upset about. Things haven’t been the same lately. I’m going to be reassigned in my job and everything is turning upside down. It’s frustrating.”

 

She led me inside and we both sat down on her couch. “How is he handling everything?” she asked.

 

I threw up my arms. “How should I know? It’s not like he calls me. And why should he? He quit his job, so we aren’t partners anymore. We’re just two people who used to work together.”

 

That caught my mother off guard. “What’s been going on between you two?” she asked.

 

“It’s just that he doesn’t care anymore. I’ve always been the one who had to be dragged into all of it. Now that the roles are reversed, I’m lost. I haven’t seen him in two weeks. I always thought that it mattered more to him than to me. Somewhere along the way, I guess I ended up caring more. This job has been the only life I’ve known for six years, and it’s not going to mean anything if he’s not there beside me. What am I going to do to fill this void now?”

 

“You have to be patient, dear. He’s been through a lot. It’s normal that other things in his life like his job would seem less important.”

 

“I never thought his crusade would end with his sister. I can’t believe I actually thought he cared about uncovering government conspiracies and discovering evidence of the paranormal.”

  
“Or, what you’re saying is that you actually thought he cared about you.”

 

“Well.”

 

“You’re not being fair to him. He’s just caught up in his moment. This is the biggest, most important thing that has ever happened to him. You’re important to him too, but you’re not a part of this. This is about Fox and his sister.”

 

 _And Diana Fowley_ , I added silently, but I didn’t want to bring that up. “But if I’m important to him, he should want to share this with me as well, not ignore me completely.”

 

“He’ll come around when everyone forgets about the story.”

 

“But I need to know it now. I need to know he cares now.”

 

“He does. I see it, and soon you’ll see it too. Sometimes, Dana, you can’t see the truth until it’s behind you.”


	3. Determination

Hi Dana, how are you holding up?”

 

I looked up at the concerned face of another female agent in the cubicle down the row from me. I was back on the force, so to speak, if you could call sifting through mounds of paperwork a job. I forced a quick smile. “Oh, I just have to get these forms in by the end of the day.” I tried to keep my tone light, but it didn’t work. Everyone knew about my connection to Mulder and how I had been unceremoniously dumped from the X-Files.

 

“Listen, if you ever need anything, anything at all, you know where I am. I just want you to know that I’m here if you need to talk.”

 

I nodded and tried to look receptive. I wasn’t even sure of her name. Greta? Gretchen? Gertrude? “Thanks, I’ll remember it.” I looked back down at my work, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

 

“I know these things can be difficult, what with all the recent changes in your life. When my partner of ten years quit, I was devastated. It took a long time to get used to having a new partner, so I understand what you’re going through.”

 

“Thank you,” I said again. _Do you? Do you really understand? There isn’t any room for me in this new life of his. Did you feel that way too?_

 

It had been a few days since I had last spoken to Mulder, although only just a few hours since I had last seen him. I really had to stop watching TV. I couldn’t get away from all the simpering about his new heroic life with his sister. All the major networks were all eating it up, and amazingly enough, not getting tired of it. Actually, it was more amazing to me that Mulder wasn’t getting more tired of it. He would smile as the crowd pandered to him, laugh as the interviewer pressed him, and talk easily to the cameras about his life’s triumphs. It was almost as if Mulder himself had morphed into an alien. I didn’t know why he would put up with this, and why he would sacrifice his privacy, not to mention his dignity, for something as unimportant as the limelight.

 

“And of course, I know that you and Diana Fowley have never been the best of friends, so this must be even tougher to handle.”

 

I was instantly pulled out of my musings. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

 

She looked embarrassed. “Well, Dana, it’s kind of public knowledge that you two are cold towards each other.”

 

“What does she have to do with anything?”

 

“Well, she _is_ the one who keeps orchestrating all this media attention for Agent Mulder.”

 

I was about to disagree when I remembered that Diana had already been at the scene when we emerged from the house with Samantha and had already been talking about reporters and speeches. I hadn’t really dwelled on it much because at the time, I had been too angry with Diana’s possessiveness towards Mulder. Maybe that’s not all she had up her sleeve. Was she actively keeping this story alive for a reason?

 

“Yes, I guess she has been,” I said thoughtfully. It was time to determine exactly how far she’d dug her claws into Mulder’s discovery.

 

 

*****

 

 

I decided that even if Mulder was in dreamland lately, I still needed to talk to him about Diana Fowley and whatever she was directing for him. I knew Diana enough to know that she wouldn’t be doing this out of a sincere gesture towards Mulder, even with the ambiguous history they shared. I also knew that she probably wouldn’t have done it to sleep with him again. Who had that even benefited more? I tried to put it out of my mind.

 

It was early in the evening when I knocked on the door to Mulder’s apartment, but no one answered. I tried the door and found it was unlocked so I let myself in. Nobody was in the living room, but I heard faint noises in the back room. I walked in and saw Mulder kneeling over Samantha who was lying in Mulder’s bed.

 

“Mulder, what’s going on?”

 

He didn’t answer for a minute. I gently gripped his forearm and he finally turned toward me, his face drawn and worried. “It’s Samantha. “His voice was hollow. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

 

I looked at the woman lying on the mattress, alert but silent except for ragged breathing. She looked like a late stage cancer patient. I sucked in my breath and decided not to relay that to Mulder. “When did this happen?”

 

“She started to feel bad yesterday. I left her here when I went to an interview in the morning, and she’s used to me leaving here while I do that. But when I got back, she asked me to cancel everything in the afternoon so I could stay with her. I just thought it was exhaustion. She’s been having nightmares, so she hasn’t been sleeping all that much at night. Or I thought it could have even been the flu.” His voice cracked. “But this doesn’t look like the flu. And it’s just gotten worse since then.” He sat down roughly in a chair.

 

“Don’t worry, Mulder, we’re going to get through this. We’re going to help her.”

 

“What if we can’t? What if no one can? What if I lose her just like I lost her all those years ago? Oh God, Scully, I don’t think I could go through with that again. If she died and left me here--“

 

“Mulder,” I said sharply, “what you need to do is pack an overnight bag for her. She’ll need her toothbrush, pajamas, a change of clothes, things like that. I’m going to take her to the hospital.”

 

“The hospital? So you think something really is wrong?”

 

“This is just a precaution to give you peace of mind, that’s all. Now, go get her things.”

 

While Mulder ran around stuffing random articles of clothing into a duffel bag, I stroked Samantha’s hand. She had been through so much, and now I didn’t know if the doctors could help her. But I did know that Mulder needed to relax before he had a breakdown.

 

“All right, I’m set, she’s set.” He held up the bulging bag. “When do we go?”

 

“First, I want you to calm down. You’re going to be no help to her if you’re stressed.” I walked into the kitchen and poured Mulder a glass of water, and then made him drink it all and lie down on the couch until we were ready to go. There was no way he needed to have a heart attack trying to protect his sister. Fifteen minutes later, when I had Samantha propped up against me and ready to leave, Mulder was asleep in on the couch. I made the decision to take her myself and left a note of explanation behind.

 

 

*****

 

 

On the way to the hospital, Samantha looked around the car. “Are you taking me back home?” she asked groggily.

 

“No,” I replied. “I’m taking you to the hospital. Your brother is worried about you, so I decided to go ahead and have doctors look at you just to make sure everything’s fine, which I’m sure it is.”

 

“You’ve been to the Nucleus, I know that. I can see that it’s inside of you. You’re just like one of my angels.”

 

“Samantha?” I was worried that she was slipping into delirium. I looked over and she had her eyes closed. “I want you to stay awake. You need to stay awake until we get there.”

 

“I’m here, I never left. I’m just remembering everything. They all used to sing to me and they were my angels. But my angels left and we stopped going there.”

 

“Samantha, you have to stay with me,” I said, getting nervous. It seemed like she might have been going into shock.

 

“Why did you leave me? Why did all the others leave me?”

 

“I never left you. I never met you before this.”

 

“Yes, in the Nucleus. There were other children and the angels that took care of us. But the angels had to leave. And then, one by one the children left also. And when they came back, they weren’t the same. They had been hurt. I was scared they would come for me next. But one day we never went back there again.

 

“Did you have any, uh, anything done to you while you were there?” I spoke very carefully.

 

Samantha nodded. “A few months ago, I think. I was taken back to the Nucleus for the first time in years, and there wasn’t anyone else there. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I think I had some sort of surgery and then they made me sleep for a really long time.”

 

I made an abrupt decision. We were no longer going to the hospital. What Mulder had been saying to the smoking man came together in my head. This was no ordinary woman here who sat beside me; the Syndicate must have performed the tests on her too. She had been part of the experiments to turn humans into alien hybrids. I realized I was starting to sound like Mulder but I had to follow up on this. It was the only way it could all make sense. There was also a thought in the back of my head pricking at my neck that bothered me: why was it that I had no recollection of ever being her “angel”, something that had clearly meant a lot to her?

 

 

*****

 

 

It was late evening when I pulled into the medical lab at Quantico. I wanted to run some quick tests in order to lay some speculations to rest.

 

“Samantha, I’d like you to lie down on that table over there. I just want to see where this sickness is coming from.”

 

She complied readily and held still as I looked into her eyes, nose, and mouth. As I moved to draw blood, she asked, “Why couldn’t you just do this at Fox’s apartment?”

 

“I don’t have the equipment there. Hold still, please. It will just take a moment.”

 

“But you do it when I’m sleeping” she persisted. “If I start to wake up, you whisper that it’s okay, that it will help me.” She turned her arm up toward me and I could see faint pinpricks along her arm, but I couldn’t tell how recent they were.

 

I was confused. “This has been happening while you’ve been at your brother’s place?”

 

Samantha nodded. “Sure, a few times, I think.”

 

“Do you know who does this to you?”

 

“I thought it was you.”

 

           

*****

 

 

We returned to Mulder’s apartment after I finished the tests. I wouldn’t know until the next day what the results showed, and I wasn’t sure at this point what they would prove. And although odd, I wasn’t that troubled by Samantha’s visions of someone disturbing her sleep with punctures to the skin. I was more troubled that whatever had happened to her in the long term had affected her mind to the point where she imagined angels taking care of her and someone taking her blood while she slept. After all, who would have the audacity to break into Mulder’s apartment each night while he slept on the couch? I brushed her concerns aside.

 

After dropping Samantha off back at Mulder’s, I realized that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Mulder about Diana’s involvement in his media frenzy. That was fine, I decided. I would go right to the source.

 

 

*****

 

 

I wished for Mulder’s eidetic memory as I steered through numerous unfamiliar streets. Diana was the nocturnal sort, so I wasn’t worried about waking her. After a few wrong turns, I found myself on Lilac Court in front of Diana’s unlikely hideout. I went up to the door and pounded hard. Within seconds, Diana, clad in a skimpy negligee, opened the front door. “Yes?” she purred.

 

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” I muttered.

 

“No, I was just on my way to catch some zzz’s. To tell you the truth, you were probably the last person I expected to show up at my door.”

 

I pursed my lips together. “Oh really? You never thought I’d piece your connection with Mulder together?”

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

I looked at Diana’s wide-open expression and smiled wryly. “I think you know what I mean. I think you know exactly why I’m here.”

 

“No, actually I don’t. Why not enlighten me so that I can get my beauty rest?”

 

She looked so smug that I couldn’t help it. I lost my temper. “I want to know why you did it. Why do you care how much press Mulder gets? Why are you doing all this for him and what do you want in return?”

 

“Excuse me? If you’re implying that I forced him into this, then you have been misled. Fox and I work together now.” Her lips folded into a grin. “You could call it a partnership.”

 

Her words burned exactly as intended, but I tried to brush them aside and focus. “I’m not implying anything. I just want to know--“

 

“What?”

 

“Why even do this? I don’t understand how you could take a man’s needing his sister and turn it into a circus event!”

 

“He wanted this for himself. He needed proof; he needed something desperately to believe in.” She nodded towards my necklace. “You could be accused of the same thing; what’s the difference? I did not force Fox to do anything. I simply suggested that this might be a good opportunity to get people to listen to what he’s believed for years. He finally has an audience. What’s wrong with that?”

 

“You rat!” I fumed.

 

She laughed easily. “No, I am not the rat; you’ve got the wrong person. I’m simply smart. You could stand to take a few tips from me. You shouldn’t trust anyone, not even your precious ex-partner. The person on top is always your best friend.” She shrugged. “I’ve owed allegiance to CGB Spender; now, it seems that Fox needs a friend. I help out in any way that I can.”

 

“You don’t help anybody but yourself.”

 

“If you choose to look at it that way, go right ahead. But it’s nothing that most people in this world don’t do. We all have to look out for number one.”

 

She closed her door and I stood on her front porch stupefied, realizing that I had not gotten one bit of useful information out of her. I’m sure it was how she had managed to stay alive all these years, playing the role of the cunning double agent.

 

Driving home, I was still mulling over the strange conversation. I couldn’t believe that Mulder would team up with Diana of all people to help share with the world his vision of alien life. And why, when Diana worked with the cigarette smoking man so closely and so secretly, would she suddenly want to just expose it all to the world?

 

 

*****

 

 

I decided to return to Mulder’s apartment instead of my own to spend what remained of the night so I could keep an eye on Samantha. She had seemed so tired when I left her, so I expected her to be asleep. Instead, I saw that she was awake and struggling to breathe.

 

“It hurts,” she said when she saw me walk through the bedroom door.

 

“I’m sorry, I know,” I said sitting near her feet. “We’ll get the results back tomorrow and then we’ll know what’s going on. We’ll be able to get medicine to make you feel better, I promise.”

 

She breathed in and out slowly and I could see it took all of her strength. “Can I go home soon? I’m glad I found my brother, but something’s wrong here. Whatever they did in the Nucleus wasn’t as bad as this.”

 

“Samantha,” I asked patiently, “Why do you keep referring to it as a nucleus instead of a house? Is that what they referred to it as? And they never called it a house?”

 

She looked confused. “It _was_ a Nucleus, Scully.” It was the first time she had ever spoken my name and I found it touching that she referred to me in the same way Mulder did. “We were a confederation before they took it all away. They called it a Nucleus because we were in the middle of something bigger than ourselves.”

 

“But what about the house where we found you?”

 

“I had only been there for two days. I don’t know how I got there; I don’t know how long it took to get there. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I thought I had been left to die and as I resigned myself to it, I looked up and saw you.”

 

And I knew, then, that they had been smarter than we had been. We had never uncovered anything. She had been planted there to give us a seed of hope, but what they had really done was throw us off course. What’s more, they had taken the fight out of Mulder.

 

In that moment I also knew what I had suspected but should have followed up with sooner: Diana must have been involved to some degree with Samantha. I recalled the visions Samantha said she had about “someone” injecting her with something while she slept. What if that was real after all? I remembered that Mulder had said she’d been having nightmares and not sleeping at night. She probably slept during the day, then, when Mulder was out doing press conferences and such. It would be much easier to get to her if Mulder wasn’t in the apartment at all.

 

I threw open the door. Even though it was still a couple hours until dawn, I couldn’t wait. I needed to see what those tests showed. I hoped that what I suspected wasn’t true: that Diana had been organizing the media circus to take control of Samantha at key moments in order to perform more tests on her.

 

 

*****

 

 

I raced into the lab, fearing the worst. I had no idea what I’d find in Samantha’s blood, or for that matter, her DNA. Had Mulder found his sister just to lose her again to some crazy tests that had definitely not been sanctioned by the FDA? It seemed like days before the results showed up. But I was confused the moment I saw them. It was nothing that I had expected.

 

They were all negative. She was completely normal. In fact, it appeared that she should have been suffering from a mere head cold. But I recalled her writhing in pain on the sofa, squeezing her eyes shut, gasping for breath. I cocked my head to the side and lifted up the samples for a better look.

 

Everything checked out. It was as if I had used Mulder’s blood instead. I thought for a few moments that maybe Samantha had simply been exposed to some sort of normal virus, like the flu. Or, perhaps she was stressed out and having a panic attack.

 

My cell phone rang and I answered it, still scrutinizing at the test results. “Scully.”

 

Mulder’s voice was tight and clipped. “Samantha has lost consciousness and I can’t wake her up. I’m in an ambulance with her on the way to the hospital.”

 

“Which one?”

 

“Sorrows.”

 

“I’m on my way.”

 

 

*****

 

 

The scene was heartbreaking. I could see it through the window of the intensive care unit before I walked into her cubicle. Mulder’s head hovered over Samantha’s body as if he were hoping to press the life back into her frail body. But she was motionless, save for the steady rise and fall of her chest.

 

His back was to me, and I wanted to move forward, to place a hand on his shoulder, to comfort him. But I couldn’t. For some reason I stayed rooted to the ground and watched the computer monitor instead. The steady blips were hypnotic; I didn’t know how long I had been standing there when I heard my name.

 

“Scully?”

 

I looked over and saw that Mulder had turned away from Samantha and was watching me.

 

“How is she?” I asked.

 

For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then he said, “She hasn’t moved, blinked, or done anything since she’s been here. The doctors don’t know what to do for her. There hasn’t been any sign of head trauma or anything. They are calling it a ‘persistent vegetative state.’ It’s almost as if she just…went away.”

 

I walked over and took his hand as he collapsed into a plastic chair. “She hasn’t gone anywhere, Mulder. She’s still here.”

 

“Why is this happening? Wasn’t once enough?” He beat the side of the chair with his fist. “Why can’t it be enough?”

 

“You can’t sit there and talk as if she’s already gone. She needs more support than that. You need to give her that much. You know that.”

 

“What’s hoping going to do for her now? I just know I can’t lose her again. I can’t.”

 

“Listen to me. You’re going to get through this.” He leaned his head on my shoulder while I stroked his hair with my free hand. “I feel what you’re going through, Mulder. I’ve been by your side since that night in the hotel in Oregon. I know what this means to you. I can’t guarantee what you want most, but I can tell you that you’re not alone in this. I’m here.”

 

He looked up at me through his tears and squeezed my hand. “I know,” he said simply. “Thank you.” He looked deeply into my eyes and I knew that he was seeing me for the first time in weeks and I turned away before he saw my own tears.

 

 

*****

 

 

Seventeen hours later, nothing had changed. They had moved Samantha into a regular room so that family members could stay by her side. Mulder would not leave Samantha even when I tried to persuade him to come with me to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. The words “visiting hours” meant nothing to him. I was sure he was worried that if he left, she would vanish again. As Mulder watched Samantha, I ended up watching Mulder, making sure he didn’t keel over from the lack of sleep.

 

Nurses came and went, but they couldn’t determine why she wasn’t responding. They stopped coming so often anymore, probably feeling useless; they never did anything except check the monitor and her reflexes. I stared at her intently, but it remained a mystery.

 

I had already had six cups of coffee and three doughnuts and was feeling a little stir crazy, probably because I’d hardly slept in two days. Mulder was nodding off in his chair while still holding his sister’s hand. It was near midnight and the halls were nearly empty, at least in the wing we happened to be in. I decided to go walking to try to clear my head.

 

I wandered down random hallways, ending up in the pediatric unit. That’s when all the coffee caught up with me. When I was finished with my business in the bathroom, I collapsed on the lounge in the bathroom’s corner, which was considerably more comfortable than the plastic chairs in either the cafeteria or the room. But I didn’t sit for long before I was up again and pacing around. Was this going to last forever? Were we just going to exist in the hospital in this horrible state of limbo? I balled my hands into fists and paced faster.          

 I stopped walking and turned to the sink. I gazed into the mirror and an exhausted, exasperated woman with dark blotches under her eyes stared back. I splashed water on my face and looked in vain for an improvement. There had to be something we were missing. How could a healthy woman suddenly collapse? And the tests I’d just run on her proved that there had been nothing wrong with her.

 

Sighing, I lifted the hair up off my shoulders and gently massaged my neck. And remembered. _I can see that it’s inside of you._ I remembered a time when I had been the one lying in a hospital bed with everyone I knew worried about me. The doctors and nurses had been just as helpless in the face of my cancer as they were with Samantha’s illness today. It had taken an unconventional method to cure me. Was the same true for her?

 

I never liked to touch that spot. I didn’t like to remember it was there, that foreign being that allowed me to live a normal life. In some respects I resented needing something extrinsic implanted in my body simply to survive like I had been doing all my life. But that was before I had something altered within me.

 

Samantha must have also had something done to her. She must have been altered in the “nucleus” she insisted on talking about. I then remembered the first time I had seen Samantha, what my gut reaction to her was. I had felt that she was possibly different somehow, that perhaps the hybridization had been successful on her as it had been on Cassandra Spender.

 

But what would happen if, say, the alien part of a hybridized human was replaced? Would this human return to normal, just the same as before? Or would the DNA be so changed that the absence of the necessary links in the chain would cause the organs to simply shut down, little by little, until that body finally died? But that forced another question to be asked: who would put someone through the hybridization process only to try—unsuccessfully—to change that person back into a regular human again? And why?

 

These were terrible questions, but I knew beyond a doubt that I had to be on to something. I also realized that if I was right, there was only one person who would know how to cure Samantha. I was sure she wasn’t going to give the information up easily, but I had to move into action. There was little time to lose because I didn’t know how long Samantha had left. In a split second decision, I left the hospital without telling Mulder where I was going.


	4. Denouement

I didn’t actually have a real plan as I again headed through the intricate maze of roads that would lead me to Lilac Court. I was determined this time to not leave without getting real, concrete answers. Adrenaline was all that fueled me at this point; that and those endless cups of coffee.

 

I walked up to the door with a purposeful stride, as if I knew all along what I meant to do. But the truth was that I didn’t know whether to ring the doorbell or kick the door in. While I stood deliberating, the decision was made for me. The porch light came on and there was no place I could easily hide. I stood my ground and waited. After what seemed like an hour, the door swung open.

 

“Why Dana, it’s so nice to see you again! Really, we must stop bumping into each other like this!” Diana batted her eyelashes at me.

 

I no longer had time for her bullshit games. “Samantha is dying. I want to know why.”

 

Diana’s eyes turned into slits and her whole demeanor changed. “I have nothing to tell.”

 

“I fail to believe that. I think you’ve been keeping the truth from a lot of people, Mulder in particular. And it’s time for you to own up to your lies.”

 

“Just what is it you think I’ve been lying about?”

 

I decided to put away my doubts and act on my hunch. “Mulder’s sister is lying in a hospital right now and you’re the one who caused it.” I held my body rigid, waiting for her to confirm or deny.

 

She didn’t say anything for a full minute. Then she abruptly pushed the screen door open. “Come inside.”

 

Against my better judgment, I complied. My instincts were shouting out to me, but I had to know for sure what had happened to Samantha if I had any hope of helping her. Diana settled on the couch and motioned for me to join her, but I stood instead. She scrutinized me and then asked, “Why do you think I have anything to do with it?”

 

“I wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t been spending so much time with Mulder, organizing his press conferences and whatever else he had going on.”

 

“So this is really about Fox, then. About how he’s been spending so much time away from you?” She seemed more at ease with this topic, and it set me on guard.

 

“No, Diana, this is about you and it’s about whomever you have been working for, and whatever you’re doing to Samantha.”

 

“Then you want to know who I am working for?”

 

“I want to know anything that is pertinent to the recovery of Mulder’s sister. Whether that means I need to go through you, or some other higher-up.”

 

She smiled impishly. “You know, you sound so much like Fox. ‘Tell me who is in charge. Tell me how I can help her.’ It’s pathetic really. I never thought you would succumb to his brainwashing techniques.”

 

“I’m not brainwashed. I believe in his cause.”

 

“Yes, and I’m sure you already know how he goes to any length to find his answers.” She looked at me meaningfully. “Or didn’t he tell you how he, shall we say, _persuaded_ me to give him the information leading to his sister’s rescue?”

 

“I don’t care how he--“

 

“So he did?”

 

I look straight into her eyes. “Yes.”

 

“And still willing to help him out after all this? Well, well. That’s very impressive.”

 

“He just did what he had to do for the information, that’s all. When he told me, he called it a sacrifice he had no choice but to make.”

 

Something dangerous flashed in her eyes for a brief moment before she got herself under control again. “Funny,” she drawled. “It didn’t seem like such a burden to him at the time.”

 

_Fuck you, Diana._

 

I had to remember that this had nothing to do with me; they’d had a relationship way before I had entered the picture. Not that I was actually in the picture as anything more than his partner, but I wasn’t going to dwell on that at the moment. “He doesn’t love you, Diana,” I said firmly.

 

“I’m the only one who can offer him what he wants. What he needs. I gave him his sister.”

 

My eyes widened at that and she laughed. “Oh, you think it was actually the old man’s idea? No, he was determined to dangle the promise of Samantha in front of Fox indefinitely. But when Fox showed up here out of the blue demanding answers, the opportunity to finally get my hands on her presented itself. I told CGB Spender that a contact wanted to start up the hybrid program again but first insisted on meeting Samantha. Spender agreed to meet him in that rundown place in Virginia but wanted to make sure the contact was legit first, so he held Samantha nearby. He never fully trusted me, so he still refused to let me know where that was. I must congratulate Mulder on forcing him to give up the location, something I never would have been able to do on my own. CGB Spender may not have been in on the plan, but he ended up playing his part beautifully.”

 

“I’m supposed to believe that you set all of this up yourself? And that you were never truly working for the smoking man?”

 

“Such little faith.” She leaned back into the couch and crossed her legs. Clearly she meant to disarm me by talking casually. Either that or she truly didn’t see me as a threat. She should have. I remained standing. “It has served my interests to pretend that I was still doing the now-defunct Syndicate’s bidding to try to get to Fox’s sister.”

 

 “What would _you_ need with Samantha?”

 

“She’s the key to everything.” Diana sighed, clearly thinking I was stupid. “As you know, Samantha was taken from her house when she was eight years old because her father refused to go along with the plan to give up family members to the alien cause. That much Fox probably told you.”

 

I grudgingly nodded and she continued. “But unlike the others, she wasn’t tested when she was a child. Although she was frequently with the others at the testing site, she was kept apart as a constant. At least, that’s how CGB Spender played it and the aliens allowed it. She had a relatively normal childhood, growing up with her brother, Jeffrey Spender.

 

“But after all hell broke loose earlier this year with the rebels, the aliens demanded Samantha as the last test subject owed to them under the agreement. Using the same technology that they had developed with Cassandra, they were able to recreate a perfect hybrid in Samantha.”

 

“But you’ve been undoing the process. Why?”

 

“Oh, so she tattled on me, did she?”

 

“Not really. I figured out that you must have been breaking into Mulder’s apartment during the day while he’s been distracted by interviews, extracting Samantha’s existing hybridized DNA and replacing it with a substance that is only lethal to her: human DNA.” It was the only explanation possible as to why her lab results had looked normal and “human” at the time.

 

“Her original genetic material was already available from when she was cloned, yes.”

 

“It’s killing her!”

 

“It’s unfortunate, it really is. I don’t have anything personally against her. But after I learned what the Syndicate has been doing, I couldn’t allow it to continue. I secretly joined the rebels instead because I still believe we can fight against the hybridization and colonization of our species. I have to destroy any and all hybrids that are made. Without the hybrids, they can’t continue.”

 

“You’re no better than the cigarette smoking man,” I said bitterly. “You think you’re serving this noble cause, but at what cost?” 

 

“This will save the world,” she insisted. “We’re at war, Dana. Soon you won’t have the luxury of staying neutral. Fox understands that.”

 

“You think he’s going to understand that you killed his sister?”

 

There was something unreadable in her eyes for the briefest moment. “The rebels offered protection for Fox and me if I took care of his sister for them.”

 

“He’s going to know you don’t really love him,” I said. “You just wanted to get close to him to gain access to Samantha.” It made sense. Now that I wasn’t Mulder’s partner anymore, Diana was becoming his new confidant. Once Samantha died, she would be the one to offer him comfort in his grief, eventually slipping back into her role of manipulating him for her own ends. “He’s going to know that you were the one behind all of this.”

 

She was calm. “It’s not like you’re going to be around to tell him. Do you really think I invited you inside for a friendly chat?”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to offer to let me join you?” I asked sarcastically.

 

“We both know there can only be one woman in Fox’s life.”

 

She lunged at me, hoping to take me by surprise at the suddenness of the attack. But I reacted more quickly than she could ever dream. I had spent too much time fighting monsters to be taken by the likes of her.

 

I grabbed her wrists to stop her mid-attack and kicked her right leg so she stumbled. In an instant, I grabbed her around the waist and rammed my palm up into her nose. She yelped in surprise and pain. “Now,” I said softly, “I want you to tell me how to save Samantha.”

 

“No,” she snarled. She pushed her way out of my grasp and began kicking at me. Her left foot smashed into my chin, but I managed to whip around out of her reach and caught her from behind. She had a good six inches on me, but I was faster and stronger. I slammed her to the floor and pinned her neck with my arms.

 

“What’s it gonna be?” I asked, crouching over her and whispering in her ear. “Do we need to continue, or will you tell me what to do?”

 

She looked worse than I felt, but she still pursed her lips closed. I ripped a bracelet with a key that I’d noticed earlier off her wrist and rushed through the house, looking for a security box of some sort that would fit such a key. After a quick search, I found a kit in the basement that contained five syringes.

 

I returned upstairs with the kit. Diana hadn’t moved, and it didn’t seem like she was able to.

 

“How does this work?” I asked.

 

She looked away from me and I was forced to kneel down and grab her hair in anticipation.

 

“They’re anti-rejection vials,” she finally admitted. “One-to-one solution. I gave her three doses of human DNA, so she needs three doses of that to reverse the damage.”

 

I nodded and got up, standing over her. “Don’t kill me,” she pleaded.

 

Looking down at her, I once again heard Mulder’s words: _That’s not who you are._ I was fighting to save, not to kill. “It’s not worth it,” I said, and stepped over her into the kitchen where I called 911 on my way out the door.

 

 

*****

I held one of the syringes lightly, turning it over in my hands. Funny how something so small could make such a difference. It was the miracle of modern medicine, and I still never failed to marvel at it, even as it helped millions around the world every day. But could I actually call _this_ modern medicine? I doubted my mentor in medical school would have agreed. But then, he had not witnessed the things that I’d seen, and had not been through years of disbelieving only to concede that some things have explanations of their own. His world was one of black vs. white, and somewhere along the way, mine had become infused with gray. I believed I was holding a part of it in my hands.

 

Yes, I believed that it would cure Samantha. I didn’t know exactly know how it would affect her system, but I believed in it as surely as in the implant that had cured me years before. Still, I hesitated. I set the syringe down on the counter and eyed it as if it were my biggest enemy. And it was. In my mind’s eye, I saw my future. I saw more of the same of my current life: Mulder and Samantha together and rejoicing in their togetherness. I saw him and me estranged, meaning no more to each other than Grace, Gretchen, or whatever her name was, meant to me.

 

As much as I hated that vision, I hated myself even more for picturing a different reality, an alternative future. The look that he gave me in Samantha’s hospital room—it was everything I had been missing these last several weeks. How could I give that up forever? I closed my eyes and imagined that I was again his partner, the one he trusted with his life. That Mulder knew I would do everything in my power to help him even though he would never be truly happy again.

 

The syringe was poised above the open drain, patiently accepting my indecision. I had never known Mulder to be perfectly content in all the years I had known him. How could he be with his sister’s disappearance always in his subconscious? It had kept him searching for answers, trying to uncover the truth. This had formed his personality over the years, and that was the Mulder that I was missing now.

 

But still…I loved him. And the world could go up in flames or aliens, or whatever, and I would still do everything to give him what he wanted. I admitted it to myself even as I picked up the syringe and the rest of the kit and moved backward toward the door. His life was about his sister, not the X-Files, nor me, and so I knew that I had lost him. Already saying a silent goodbye, I moved down the hallway to Samantha’s room.

 

 

*****

 

 

Mulder was asleep, crunched into a pathetic ball in a plastic chair. His face had grown patchy stubble and his eyes twitched under his lids. He was not at peace, and I resisted the urge to brush the hair away from his forehead. _What if I never find someone again who loves and trusts me as much as you have always done?_ But it had to be and so I did it. The needle slipped into Samantha too easily, contrasting with the weight on my conscience. Twice more, and the deed was done.

 

The effect was almost instantaneous. Her monitor jumped to life with renewed signs even if her body did not move. But anyone could see the surge of energy that released up from within. I was raising her from the dead, or so it felt. My nerves tingled and a nurse walked briskly in the room. She did not look at me but stepped directly over to Samantha.

 

She looked at the monitor and then looked at the sleeping woman. She watched skeptically for a few seconds and rushed away. Momentarily, she arrived with an entourage of medical attendants who in turn gazed on Samantha, read her charts, and spoke in hushed voices. Not once did they look in my direction or ask what happened.

 

After some time, the increased frenzy woke Mulder. When he saw the seven or so assembled doctors and nurses around Samantha’s bed, he sprang up from his chair. “Is there something wrong? Did something happen?”

 

The group silently appraised each other. Finally, one of the doctors, an older man, stepped forward. He cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Mulder, something has happened, yes. Something amazing. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes. This is extremely unprecedented.” He stopped and looked back at his colleagues, perhaps for support.

 

“What?”

 

“Your sister, Samantha, has seemingly made a full recovery. This morning, I would have told you that she was not going to make it through another night. No one would have disputed me. Now, she is perfectly healthy. Her charts show nothing is wrong with her.”

 

“Why is she still asleep? If she’s fine, why hasn’t she woken up?

 

“Her body needs time to recover; it’s been through a lot. Mr. Mulder…this is unheard of. You should feel extremely lucky. It’s as if her body just…regenerated itself.”

 

At this, Mulder glanced at me quickly but then turned back to the doctor. “When do you think she’ll be awake?”

 

“She should be awake in a few hours, perhaps by morning. She will still need plenty of rest, but she will most likely be as good as new quite soon. Meanwhile, we will continue to monitor her here and document this incredible phenomenon.”

 

The doctors and nurses retreated from room, and Mulder and I were left alone with Samantha. He looked at her and touched her arm lightly. “It’s a miracle,” he murmured. “They said she just spontaneously regenerated herself.”

 

“Yes, sure, spontaneous,” I agreed in a neutral tone.

 

Mulder looked at me curiously. “It _was_ you. You cured her?”

 

I tried to shrug it off. “It wasn’t anything you wouldn’t have done.”

 

“But you did it for her. For me,” he said wonderingly. “You’re incredible!”

 

“No, Mulder, don’t.” I turned to leave.

 

I got almost to the door when he stopped me. “Scully, wait. What’s wrong?”

 

“I’m not anything,” I mumbled. How could I admit what I’d almost done? I could still see the syringe wavering on edge of the counter, the tangible evidence of my selfish indecision that could have changed everything.

 

“Scully…why would you say something like that? Samantha is finally going to be okay!”

 

It was too much. “You don’t get it!” I burst out. “Right when we found her, everything started to turn upside down. You quit your job, you stopped talking to me…I was worried that Samantha might have completed your life.”

 

He was bewildered. “Well, yes, this has completed my life. I’ve been searching for her most of my life. It’s what I dreamed about. I had hoped that somehow I would get her back. And she returned via your hand. What could be more perfect or complete?” His gaze lingered on the gash on my chin where Diana’s foot had caught it. “I can’t imagine what you must have gone through.”

 

He reached for me, but I remained beyond his grasp. He didn’t understand what I was trying to say. “Remember how you said there were things you did that you’re not proud of? I’m guilty of the same. It kills me to say this, but I have to. I’d be living a lie otherwise.”  


“Scully, what are you talking about?”

 

I took a breath. “After I got the cure, I almost didn’t give it to her,” I whispered. “I was selfish and I wanted things to be the way they always had been. Before she returned to your life. I almost threw it away because I missed the X-files and everything else. I almost caused her to die.” _There can only be one woman in Fox’s life._ I was a horrible person, and now he knew it.

 

“Scully…”

 

I flinched at his voice; I was so afraid of him in that moment. But when I looked back at him I was surprised to see that his eyes were full of compassion. He took my hand and asked softly, “What happened to you?”

 

We sat down and I ended up telling him everything: how I had run the lab tests on Samantha, how I figured out that Diana had been behind everything, how I had confronted Diana about her involvement in Samantha’s illness, how I’d managed to get the information from her, and finally how I’d stood at the sink and thought about pretending none of it had happened.

 

“So now you know that I’m no better than Diana,” I whispered.

 

He paced for a full minute before answering. He looked up at me. “Let me ask you a question: why did you do it?”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Why did you risk your life to get the cure for my sister? Just answer honestly.”

 

“Because I…I, uh…” It was impossible to get the words out. “I knew it was important to you and, ah, you’re important to me,” I concluded inadequately.

 

He smiled slightly and I was grateful that he understood what I couldn’t say. “First of all, Scully, you didn’t almost cause her to die. Don’t ever say that again. It was Diana who did this to her, and it wasn’t up to you to undo it. Whatever your motives might have been, you believed you could find a cure and you went to get it, disregarding the risks, and without anyone ever telling you to do it. It should have been me to do it. And so I only have you to thank in the end, Scully. Only you.”

 

Tears were dripping off my nose and I didn’t know how to respond. I had imagined a million different scenarios, but this one had eluded my imagination. “I missed you,” I said simply.

 

And in that moment, he leaned in toward me and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. In the room that held his sleeping sister as well as all his dreams and hopes, my partner and I shared our first kiss.

 

  
*****

 

 

Almost a week later, I was climbing the stairs to Mulder’s apartment. I had heard that Samantha was on her way to a full recovery, so I had brought a dozen or so balloons to celebrate. My steps felt light on the worn carpet.

 

“Knock, knock,” I said softly as I pushed open the door.

 

Mulder looked up from his perch on the edge of the couch and smiled. Samantha lay peacefully under his gaze.

 

“How’s sleeping beauty?” I asked.

 

“She’s doing so well; I still can’t believe it. I feel that I’ve been so lucky.” He looked at me meaningfully. “She’s still been sleeping a lot, but I’m sure she’ll be back to normal in no time.”

 

“That’s great to hear, Mulder. I just stopped by to drop these off,” I said, awkwardly trying to set down all the balloons that I had become entangled in. He laughed and moved to help out, taking my arms and gently unwrapping the strands, something I took care to note.

 

“So…” He cleared his throat, still holding my arms. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for, um…”

 

“You did what you had to do,” I murmured.

 

“But it hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

 

“I know it didn’t have anything to do with me.”

 

“And that was the problem right there.” He tightened his grip on my wrists and lowered his voice. “I’ve been stupid, Scully. I got so caught up in trying to find answers, and then finding Samantha, that I ended up taking you for granted. We’ve been through a lot together and it’s meant so much to me. I should have remembered that everything good I have in my life is because of you.”

 

“I guess we should agree never to take each other for granted again,” I said lightly.

 

He swept his hand up my arm and caressed my cheek, and I closed my eyes briefly at the feeling. “I think we can do a bit better than that,” he said softly.

 

I looked into his eyes and my breath caught when I saw the depth of his feelings for me. “How’s that?” I asked, wanting to hear the words.

 

“I love you, Scully,” he said softly. “You are, and have always been, the most important person in my life,” he said.

 

“And you are mine,” I whispered. I moved into his chest and he wrapped his arms around me. We stayed that way for a few minutes until I pulled back and looked up at him.

 

“And Mulder?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I wanted you to know that I did it for her, too. Not just for you. I wanted her to live.”

 

He smiled. “I know. I know that Samantha knows too.”

 

Samantha stirred, possibly at hearing her name, and opened her eyes. She smiled when she saw us standing together. “Am I really okay?” she asked me.

 

“You’re going to be fine,” answered Mulder in my stead. His eyes moistened over.

 

“Really?” she asked me again.

 

“Yes, Samantha. You’re cured,” I added.

 

“So that means I’m—“

 

“Perfectly fine.” It was true enough for the moment. Mulder and I had agreed to save the information about Diana, the rebels, and their desire to eliminate hybrids until she was stronger.

 

She smiled sleepily and closed her eyes again. I turned back to Mulder with my eyebrows arched. “So, now that she’s all right, are you going back to work on those book deals?”

 

He laughed. “Yeah, sure. Just as soon as my creative muse finds me. No, really, I think I’m about ready to call it quits with the whole celebrity deal. I’d say my fifteen minutes are up. I’m content to just return to the good old basement office.”

 

“Really, Mulder? And I thought you said just a short while ago that it was all so boring and inconclusive.”

 

He opened his eyes wide in mock disbelief. “Did I say that? And you didn’t have me committed?”

 

I just laughed, relieved, because I knew his dry humor was a good sign that my Mulder was back. “I thought about it,” I couldn’t help joking.

 

“What do you say we head over to the Bureau first thing in the morning and surprise Skinner with the news? Then we can get to work reorganizing the office, putting everything back where it belongs. God, it’s going to feel great to explore the possibilities of shape-shifting and mind-bending again!”

 

“Oh, great,” I said and rolled my eyes. But inside, my heart was full to bursting. I knew we were going to be fine. All of us.


End file.
